C3.5 R3(d): Prepare and facilitate a journal club to pharmacists

Today was my first journal club I have ever facilitated, and I think it went well! I presented a journal club on the Serious asthma events with fluticasone plus salmeterol and fluticasone alone to the pediatrics/MFM and NICU pharmacists at SMH. The RCT itself was especially interesting because there was a lot of ambiguous information in the RCT which upon dissecting it further in their supplementary appendix and their protocol, I found a fair handful of answers! Moreover, the RCT gave me a great opportunity to get to know the SNS and SMART trials, which are commonly referred to in asthma management, a fairly common condition in the peds world!

In terms of the journal club itself, I found the experience very educational. I was especially glad that I had the opportunity to see the PharmD student in peds/MFM do a journal club earlier this week so that I could pick up some of her presentation skills that worked well! Specifically, I noticed the handout she made was 1.5 pages… whereas the one I had prepared was originally 4 pages. I noticed that with the 1.5 pages she was able to fit in so much information and leave the audience with things to jot in as well. I decided to employ this strategy and I am glad I did! I hope that in the future, my first draft will already be concise.

With regards to the critical appraisal skills, I relied heavily on both NERDCAT and templates of previous journal clubs sent to me by my preceptor. I am glad I had these resources, but found that I need to be more thorough when I am assessing a trial. Specifically finding out where some of the numbers used are coming from. For this study the rate of event was defined as 0.0075, which I had not assessed, however upon prompting from my preceptor I looked into where they got the number from and if it is reasonable for their study. For this journal club, I required a great deal of guidance from my preceptor on teasing out aspects of the study that I had not considered such as the one stated above. For future journal clubs I hope to carry the following lessons from this experience:

Know the study inside out, if in the study’s rationale it cites another article (e.g. a landmark trial)… get to know that one inside out as well!

Really be critical of the study. Find rationale for why certain numbers or criteria were chosen

Ensure I give my audience probing questions that go with the flow of the conversation

Concise, concise, concise is the name of the game for handouts!

I’m looking forward to my next opportunity to polish off my critical appraisal skills and facilitate a journal club.